Piracy-dependent Siri port fully working on iPhone 4

After learning that Apple was tying Siri exclusively to the iPhone 4S, we wondered whether the jailbreak community would be able to change that. Within a day or two, Siri’s user interface was successfully ported to the iPhone 4, but Apple’s servers weren’t responding, rendering it non-functional. The same developer now has Siri fully working on other devices. However, piracy will be required if the port is ever publicly available.

The port, by developer Steven Troughton-Smith, is seen working 100% on both the iPhone 4 and on an iPod touch. As it required licensed files and a live validation token from a 4S in order to communicate with Apple’s servers, it’s considered to be pirated content. It was made possible because of a preliminary (not yet public) jailbreak for the iPhone 4S. The developer says he did it to understand the technology that makes it work, and has no intention of distributing the pirated content. He did add that he has no doubt that others will package and distribute it “quasi-legally.”

Whatever your thoughts are on the eventual distribution of the port, this further narrows down the possible reasons for Apple’s keeping Siri off of other devices. As you can see in the video below, Siri appears to work just as well on the iPhone 4 as it does on the 4S. This rules out performance concerns as a reason for the exclusivity:

The two most likely remaining motives for Apple’s snubbing of older devices are: wanting to spare the Siri servers from millions of older devices, and having a sexy ‘killer feature’ to help sell the 4S.

So will Apple be able to identify and block the older devices from accessing their servers? I would imagine that they will do anything in their power, including sending lawyers after the distributors. But, as they haven’t exactly been able to squash the distribution of cracked App Store apps for jailbroken devices, we’ll see how successful they are in that. If nothing else, we may see jailbreak exploits patched quicker than ever by the Cupertino company.